Friday, January 29, 2010

Thursday, January 28, 2010

"The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it.To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery—even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness—is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself." – Andre Breton

Monday, January 25, 2010

I saw that there is a retrospective of early work from Barbara Kruger up in London.

Kruger may be my super-favorite visual artist.

I could talk about that myself, but I will allow the exhibit promo to reduce my keystrokes.

Using contrasting layers of text and image, Kruger’s work has for almost three decades probed the nature of a media-saturated society in late capitalism, and the significance of highly evolved cultures of consumerism and mass politics to the experience and making of social identities. In addition to offering acute, indeed often piquant cultural insights, Kruger’s work also presents a serious conceptual exploration into the relationship between language and image, and their dynamics as collaborators and antagonists in the bearing of meaning. The artist’s unique blend of conceptual sophistication and wry social commentary has made Kruger one of the most respected and admired artists of her generation...

Sunday, January 24, 2010

...everyone (with the least bit of inclination) should write a novel, and society would be much better off for it. Like so many forms of introspection (in many ways the enemy of fundamentalists and political zealots of all stripes), it can be one of life’s great pleasures, but (unlike many others) is not one that falls into the category of immediate gratification (like say, that mammoth black-and-white cookie I just scarfed down). It’s sort of like running a marathon; you have to train to build up to it and maintain some discipline, but ultimately, when you cross the finish line (even if you had to crawl the last __ miles or walk part of the way), you’re going to feel a great sense of accomplishment (even — or especially — if you didn’t win), and for at least a few seconds have some warm fuzzies about being alive and completing something that nobody will ever be able to take away from you. Whether the novel will be ‘good’ or not — much less successful, however you want to define that (but let’s think about it in crass, commercial terms as opposed to a sense of accomplishment) — is a completely different question, and I tend to think that not so many people have it in them to be ‘great’ novelists, much the way only a few runners can ever expect to win a marathon, because I think it requires a certain obsessive personality that falls way outside the boundaries of what most people would consider ‘normal’ and often borders on the psychotic. (Hey!) What I think NaNoWriMo demonstrates (and perhaps to echo Choire’s optimism) is that increasing numbers of people crave some justification to be alone and think about their shit for at least one month of their lives, because society in the modern (i.e., capitalistic) era demands a lot of fucking attention just to survive, and you can easily let your entire life slip away without pondering the (generally unproductive in the economic sense, but intellectually rewarding albeit probably depressing) questions of why we’re even here to begin with, what the purpose of life is, and so on. So yeah, writing any kind of novel is a tiny revolution, and that alone is a reason for hope (and there aren’t too many of those floating around in 2k9, n’est-ce pas?)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

I assume you saw this story, about the kid who scared his middle school with a non-bomb?

SAN DIEGO — Students were evacuated from Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in the Chollas View neighborhood Friday afternoon after an 11-year-old student brought a personal science project that he had been making at home to school, authorities said.

Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said the student had been making the device in his home garage. A vice principal saw the student showing it to other students at school about 11:40 a.m. Friday and was concerned that it might be harmful, and San Diego police were notified.

The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.

Luque said the project was made of an empty half-liter Gatorade bottle with some wires and other electrical components attached. There was no substance inside.

No bomb, turns out, it was an electronics project.

The kid was actually using his head.

He was making things.

Making things.

Christ, this story pisses me off and bums me out.

This story speaks to our national economic decline, while simultaneously pointing out our de-spine-ification.

The kid was even in a school where science and technology is pushed in the curriculum.

You would think that the teachers and staff would be used to seeing stuff that kids made, that has wires and lights and stuff.

As the movie begins, rich Texan Big Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick) and his son, Little Enos (Paul Williams), are trying to find a truck driver willing to haul Coors beer to Georgia for their refreshment. Unfortunately, due to federal liquor laws and state liquor tax regulations of the time, selling and/or shipping Coors east of the Mississippi River was considered bootlegging, and the truck drivers who had taken the bet previously had been discovered and arrested by "Smokey" (truck driver and CB slang for highway patrolmen). At a local truck rodeo, the Texans locate legendary truck driver Bo "Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds) and offer him US$80,000 (US$270,000 in 2007 dollars), the price of a new truck, to haul 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas (the easternmost part of the country where Coors was legal) to the "Southern Classic" truck rodeo in Georgia— in 28 hours. Bandit accepts the bet and recruits fellow trucker Cletus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) to drive the truck (Snow brings along his dog, a Basset Hound named "Fred", for company). Bandit purchases a black Pontiac Trans Am, which he will drive himself as a "blocker" car to deflect attention away from the truck and its cargo.

I mean really!

It is a movie about a show-off trucker/bum, his buddy called Snowman and some random chic hitchhiker bootlegging Coors!

And they are chased by Jackie Gleason!

Smokey and the Bandit is a cinematic triumph.

It didn't take millions of dollars worth of CGI shit, 3D or years to produce.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

I am fairly sure there is a serious conversation about lines and braking and cornering going on right here.

The guy with his back to us I likely explaining how the guy on the Kawasaki perhaps was a bit too enthusiastic about gaining position.

I would additionally guess the three guys in the background are part of the Kawasaki team and are about to suggest lunch, right after they get the grease off of their hands by washing them in the blood from the other guys face.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

“Homunculus” a creepy experimental stop-motion film created over a 4 month period by the directing collaborative Hydra at the New York based production company Humble.

Conceived of and directed by Sam Stephens, Homunculus is a dark and twisted fable of spontaneous generation and untrammeled id. Taking its title from the Latin word for “Little Human”, the piece is an associative mashup between the two concepts behind the word: The first being middle-age alchemical beliefs that “little men” could be spontaneous generated from dead or decaying matter. The second being Carl Jung’s usage as a personification of pure id. These ideas, combined with our love of Dutch still life’s “beautiful decay,” sowed the seeds for this unique little monster of a film.

I was nice about it. I didn't make any demands on 2000. I didn't fuss that we were nowhere near launching that manned mission to Jupiter's moons, that we hadn't broken regolith on the lunar base, or that Pan Am's service to the orbital hotel was very far behind schedule. I did not even demand that most basic right of every American -- my own flying car.